


What Happens After

by Tiltedshadow



Category: Chronicles of Narnia (Movies), Chronicles of Narnia - All Media Types, Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis
Genre: Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, not fluffy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-11
Updated: 2019-01-11
Packaged: 2019-10-08 03:58:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 724
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17379161
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tiltedshadow/pseuds/Tiltedshadow
Summary: Try as she might, Lucy cannot leave the past behind.





	What Happens After

There is always a moment, before she dies, of sheer, panicked disbelief.  _ Not like this, not now, not me _ . She dies over and over again in her dreams, sometimes spitted on a Minotaur’s horns, sometimes gazing down at the sword stuck through her back and out her chest, bright with blood. It varies, but the results are always the same. She wakes screaming in the night, not every night but more often than not. And the memory of a Lion, its mane clotted, its teeth stained red, terrible in His glory. Opening her eyes at the last, she turns her head to the pillow and weeps. She is only nine.

Morning comes as it always does, motes of dust dancing in the warm English sun, when Lucy rises at last. She walks to the mirror and scrubs the night from her face, washes the last sticky remnants of her dream down the sink with the soap suds. She pads down to the kitchen, which is empty, save for Susan, who looks at her with carefully blank eyes. “How did you sleep, Lucy?” 

Lucy’s mouth twists into an ugly grimace. She never used to frown like that. “Just the usual dreams,” she says. Susan, she knows, feels the same. Susan understands. It’s a grand game for the boys, or at least that’s what they pretend, but she and Susan don’t try to hide how they feel. 

“I won’t be here for much longer,” Susan says carefully. “Lucy, you’re going to have to learn how to act like everything is normal.”

“Like you do?” Lucy says dully. Susan nods.

“Like I do,” she says. Susan is a terrible flirt, everyone knows it. Lucy thinks she’s probably the only one who knows the reason why: Susan says it helps distract her, says it provides something to anchor herself to. Thirteen and all the boys chasing her; their parents turn a blind eye but everyone knows that Susan Pevensie is going to be a slut.

“I--what will I do, when I dream? It never used to be this bad,” she says. For so long, she was able to hide under numbness, beating off the memories by sheer force of will. She is nine, and she remembers what it is like to kill a man. She remembers long, lazy nights of drinking, she remembers a girl--she’s dead by now; time moves so differently in Narnia that when they returned a second time centuries had gone by, and Lucy never got the chance to say goodbye. She hasn’t even bled yet (but she has, in a different life she has), and she remembers an adult’s life. 

“I hate Him,” she says to Susan, who is now doing something to several eggs in a bowl. The sunlight splashes itself against the floral wallpaper, and a long gone battle echoes its way through Lucy’s mind.

“So do I,” says Susan. They have had this conversation before. “He is so--” She lowers her voice. “He is so  _ fucking _ cruel. In a way He’s crueler than the Witch, I think.” 

When He calls for them next, they will go, whether they will or no. And they will be glad of it, that’s the worst part. Despite themselves, He has a way of making them love him. When next they see Him, they will adore Him, worship Him, love him. But until then--

It is nearly the end of the summer, and Lucy’s second year of boarding school. The dreams come nearly every night, and with them a black, bitter hatred and deep sorrow that most nine year olds do not feel. When He calls, they will go. But that is then, and this is now. 

Susan puts the eggs, now cooked, on two plates, and slides one across the table to Lucy. There is no bacon. The smell of cooked flesh turns Lucy’s stomach now, brings back dangerous memories, and she suspects Susan feels the same. The kitchen is warm, and safe. Sometimes she forgets to miss the weight of a knife at her hip. Not most times, but sometimes. And she has her hate, and her rage, and her sorrow. She cradles it close like a child--for all that she is a child herself--and she grits her teeth, and she waits. He will call, one day, but until then--

 


End file.
